Welcome to San Anselmo Suzuki Strings
Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music
2020 Virtual Season
Commissioned by the Cabrillo Festival, and closing out the Festival season, is the world premiere of Stacey Garrop’s new 16-minute symphonic work commemorating the centenary of women’s suffrage in America. Narrated by Santa Cruz actor and director Julie James of Jewel Theatre, the work features texts from seven American suffragettes–including Carrie Chapman Catt, Carrie W. Clifford, Jane Addams, Mary Church Terrell, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Susan B. Anthony, and Adella Hunt Logan. In an artistic and technological feat achieved by percussionist Svet Stoyanov, The Battle for the Ballot features sixty (yes, 60!) members of the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, all recorded from their homes around the world.
2021 Virtual Season
Contested Eden, a new work by composer Gabriela Lena Frank, reflects on the California wildfires and climate crisis. The work is presented as a dance video, with choreography by Molly Katzman, filmed on location by Swan Dive Media in CZU Lightning Complex Fire sites in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and music remotely-recorded by members of the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra. Remote audio recording produced, edited and engineered by Svet Stoyanov.
Performance starts at 1:30.
Violin Luthier, Douglas Cox
My violin maker
Here is a video highlighting two of his instruments being played by Maya French and Brianna Fischler of Palaver Strings, a musician-led ensemble based in Portland, Maine.
"Part of the incentive for making this video was documenting the connection between what happens on the bench and what happens in a player's hands. I like to think that there is a kind of music happening in the making—the sound of the gouge hitting the plate, the rasp of the plane on the arching, the rhythm of the work—that is echoed in the piece. Moreso, I have always been interested in the connection between maker and musician, musician and listener, and the way in which we all need each other. The player needs somebody to make the instrument; the music needs to be heard; I need to hear my instruments being played in order for my work to have meaning. I hope you can see those connections in this video".
Fabulous videography by Dylan Ladds of Dooster Films and by Willow O'Feral and Brad Heck of Haptic Pictures. Produced by Brendan Taaffe